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Afterthoughts on the Abolition of Work - adding another sectionhttps://hermetic.com/black/afterthoughts-on-the-abolition-of-work
Afterthoughts on the Abolition of Work
This is Chapter 9 of Instead of Work (Berkeley, CA: LBC Books, 2015), which was written in 2015 and now is slightly revised. The references in brackets, such as [IV], refer to other chapters of the book.
The dawn of civilization was the dawn of work. In southern Mesopotamia (Iraq), almost 6,000 years ago, “elites came to view and use fully encumbered laborers in the same exploitative way that human societies, over the immediately preceding millennia, had…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackTue, 22 May 2018 07:44:12 +0000Bob Black - added resources to listhttps://hermetic.com/black/index
fellow
Bob Black
[Bob Black]
Title Date The Abolition of Work Anarchy after Leftism Anarchism And Other Impediments To Anarchy Preface to The Right to be Greedy by "For Ourselves" Primitive Affluence: A Postscript to Sahlins The Realization and Suppression of Situationism Smokestack Lightning Technophilia, An Infantile Disorder Withered Anarchism: A Surrebuttal to Murray Bookchin Debunking Democracy April 2011 Afterthoughts on the Abolition of Work An Anarchist Response to “An Anarchist…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)fellowWed, 11 Apr 2018 10:00:13 +0000black:anarchy-after-leftism:sidebar - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/anarchy-after-leftism/sidebar
[Anarchy after Leftism]
PrefaceIntroductionBob BlackFellowsHermetic Librarylibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:anarchy-after-leftismMon, 14 Aug 2017 06:33:50 +0000black:sidebar - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/sidebar
[Bob Black]
Bob BlackFellowsHermetic Librarylibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackSat, 05 Aug 2017 05:56:45 +0000Anarchism And Other Impediments To Anarchy - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/anarchism-and-other-impediments-to-anarchy
Anarchism And Other Impediments To Anarchy
Anarchism And Other Impediments To Anarchy
Bob Black
There is no need at present to produce new definitions of anarchism - it would be hard to improve on those long since devised by various eminent dead foreigners. Nor need we linger over the familiar hyphenated anarchisms, communist- and individualist- and so forth; the textbooks cover all that. More to the point is why we are no closer to anarchy today than were Godwin and Proudhon and Kropotkin an…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackSat, 05 Aug 2017 05:53:56 +0000Preface to The Right to be Greedy by "For Ourselves" - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/preface-to-the-right-to-be-greedy-by-for-ourselves
Preface to The Right to be Greedy by "For Ourselves"
Preface to The Right to be Greedy by “For Ourselves”
Bob Black
Preface to the Preface
I was never a member of For Ourselves, the San Francisco Bay Area pro-situationist group which wrote and self-published The Right to Be Greedy in 1974. The principal author was Bruce Gardner, who has long since dropped out of sight. I came across the pamphlet a couple of years later, by which time For Ourselves was defunct. I was charmed and challenged by …librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackSat, 05 Aug 2017 05:52:25 +0000Primitive Affluence: A Postscript to Sahlins - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/primitive-affluence
Primitive Affluence: A Postscript to Sahlins
Primitive Affluence
A Postscript to Sahlins
Bob Black
(This piece originally appeared in Friendly Fire, copyright 1992 Bob Black, published by Autonomedia)
“The Original Affluent Society” by Marshall Sahlins is an essay of wide-ranging erudition whose persuasive power largely derives from two extended examples: the Australian Aborigines and the !Kung Bushmen. The Australian instance, omitted here, is developed from a variety of 19th and 20th c…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackSat, 05 Aug 2017 05:50:40 +0000The Realization and Suppression of Situationism - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/the-realization-and-suppression-of-situationism
The Realization and Suppression of Situationism
The Realization and Suppression of Situationism
Bob Black
“For our time -- I think every statement should be dated” - Alexander Trocchi1
“The Situationists, whose judges you perhaps imagine yourselves to be, will one day judge you. We are waiting for you at the turning.librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackSat, 05 Aug 2017 05:48:46 +0000Smokestack Lightning - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/smokestack-lightning
Smokestack Lightning
Smokestack Lightning
Bob Black
(an essay from the Bob Black anthology Friendly Fire)
Bob Black is a revolutionary, smirks David Ramsey Steele, “the way Gene Autry was a cowboy” (“The Abolition of Breathing,” Liberty, March 1989). A Marxist turned libertarian, Steele is miffed that to me his forward progress is just walking in circles. Steele's is the longest harshest reviewlibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackSat, 05 Aug 2017 05:33:04 +0000Technophilia, An Infantile Disorder - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/technophilia-an-infantile-disorder
Technophilia, An Infantile Disorder
Technophilia, An Infantile Disorder
by Bob Black
(A rejoinder to an authoritarian polemic by “Walter Alter” published in Fringe Ware Review. The magazine didn't publish it, except for several sample paragraphs, but did post it on the Internet. It also appeared inlibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackSat, 05 Aug 2017 05:14:42 +0000black:withered-anarchism:sidebar - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/sidebar
[Withered Anarchism by Bob Black]
Withered AnarchismGetting Personal(istic)Stone Age or Old Age? An Unbridgeable ChasmForaging as AnarchyForaging as ZeroworkForaging as Egalitarian CommunismForaging as the Good LifeNightmares of ReasonNegative and Positive FreedomMurray Bookchin, One-Dimensional ManWhither Anarchism?Appendix A: "Book Filled with Lies"Appendix B: "Epitaph to Bookchinism" (a Blast from the Past)Appendix C: Primitivism and the EnlightenmentBob BlackFellowsHermetic Librarylibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 05:07:20 +0000Withered Anarchism: A Surrebuttal to Murray Bookchin - adding toc linkshttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/index
Withered Anarchism: A Surrebuttal to Murray Bookchin
[Withered Anarchism: A Surrebuttal to Murray Bookchin by Bob Black]
Withered Anarchism: A Surrebuttal to Murray Bookchin
Bob Black
“The general level of insight now is more educated, curiosity is wide awake, and judgments are made more quickly than formerly; so the feet of them which shall carry thee out are already at the doorlibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:51:46 +0000Appendix C: Primitivism and the Enlightenment - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/primitivism-and-the-enlightenment
Appendix C: Primitivism and the Enlightenment
“There is nothing new,” the Director Emeritus intones, “about the romanticization of tribal peoples. Two centuries ago, denizens of Paris, from Enlighteners such as Denis Diderot to reactionaries like Marie Antoinette, created a cult of ‘primitivism’ [sic] that saw tribal people as morally superior to members of European society, who presumably were corrupted by the vices of civilization.librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:47:33 +0000Appendix B: Epitaph to Bookchinism (a Blast from the Past) - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/epitaph-to-bookchinism
Appendix B: Epitaph to Bookchinism (a Blast from the Past)
How surprised – and then, how unsurprised – I was to come across evidence of a fracas 30 years ago between Bookchin (not yet a Professor or Director) and the American Section of the Situationist International. The Situationists adjudged to be unacceptable Bookchin’s articles about the French uprising of 1968 which had appeared in the Rat, an underground newspaper in New York City. Presumably these articles are identical or substantially…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:46:57 +0000Appendix A: Book Filled with Lies - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/book-filled-with-lies
Appendix A: Book Filled with Lies
The latest of the Director’s ironic indiscretions is his heavy reliance on Edwin Wilmsen’s Land Filled with Flies to bash the anarcho-primitivists. In SALA, Bookchin asserted an affinity between anarcho-primitivism and post-modernism, with sublime indifference to the fact that post-modernism has no harsher critic than John Zerzan. To any reader of Wilmsen not in thrall to an ulterior motive, Wilmsen is blatantly a post-modernist. One of his reviewers, Henry Har…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:46:21 +0000Whither Anarchism? - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/whither-anarchism
Whither Anarchism?
If this is, as Bookchin’s title implies, the question, it is one for which he has no answer. In “The Left That Was,” the appendix to SALA, he all but concedes that the classical left is forever defunct. Long ago he announced thatlibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:45:05 +0000Murray Bookchin, One-Dimensional Man - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/murray-bookchin-one-dimensional-man
Murray Bookchin, One-Dimensional Man
My first time around, in Anarchy after Leftism, I gave Bookchin’s history of recent anarchism the scant attention it deserves. This time I’ll screwtinize it in more detail. Basically it goes like this. At the economic base, there are periods oflibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:44:31 +0000Negative and Positive Freedom - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/negative-and-positive-freedom
Negative and Positive Freedom
Some of the Director’s readers must be puzzled by his terms negative and positive freedom, especially if they know what they mean. Negative freedom is “liberty from,” positive freedom is “a fleshed-out concept of freedom for.librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:43:44 +0000Nightmares of Reason - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/nightmares-of-reason
Nightmares of Reason
Unconscious irony has become a hallmark of Late Bookchinism, the Highest Stage of Leftism. Well-known examples include Bookchin’s denunciation of leftists with alluring academic careers just as the Director retired from an alluring academic career; his scathing contempt for John Clark’slibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:43:16 +0000Foraging as the Good Life - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/foraging-as-the-good-life
Foraging as the Good Life
By the catchall phrase “the good life” I refer to various further features of foraging society which are significant for what I can only refer to, vaguely at the outset, as the quality of life. Necessarily, interpretation and value judgments enter into the assessment of this dimension even more openly than in the assessment of the first three, but just as necessarily there is no avoiding them. Viable anarcho-communist societies naturally interest anarchists, but if hun…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:42:26 +0000Foraging as Egalitarian Communism - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/foraging-as-egalitarian-communism
Foraging as Egalitarian Communism
This is the one aspect of forager society which Bookchin even now accepts and approves of. The revisionists have not gone very far in dispelling this conception, to which both Marx and Kropotkin subscribed: they have just identified a few more exceptions to the general rule of equality and food-sharing. Usually, as I pointed out in Anarchy after Leftism, it is the sedentary hunter-gatherers who may (but often do not) develop some social stratification, as did t…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:41:53 +0000Foraging as Zerowork - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/foraging-as-zerowork
Foraging as Zerowork
In “The Original Affluent Society,” which Bookchin has apparently not read, Marshall Sahlins wrote: “A good case can be made that hunters and gatherers work less than we do; and, rather than a continuous travail, the food quest is intermittent, leisure abundant, and there is a greater amount of sleep in the daytime per capita per year than in any other condition of society.librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:41:18 +0000Foraging as Anarchy - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/foraging-as-anarchy
Foraging as Anarchy
So far as I can determine, none of the research or arguments of the revisionists even purport to deny the long-established and unanimous anthropological consensus that non-sedentary hunter-gatherers, at least – and at least most of the sedentary ones – have always been stateless. This was common ground between them and the Lee/DeVore school and all their predecessors. Not even Bookchin seems to dispute the primitive-anarchy thesis, the thesis most important to anarchists.…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:40:38 +0000Stone Age or Old Age? An Unbridgeable Chasm - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/stone-age-or-old-age
Stone Age or Old Age? An Unbridgeable Chasm
To support his claim that Hobbesianism has been restored to anthropological orthodoxy, the Director cites one highly controversial book, one review of that book, and a pop science story, none of which is of very recent vintage. It is characteristic of Bookchin’s scrupulously scientific method that he affirms as the new consensus – because it suits his political purposeslibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:40:04 +0000Getting Personal(istic) - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/withered-anarchism/getting-personalistic
Getting Personal(istic)
My book Anarchy after Leftism, according to the ex-Dean, teems with falsehoods so numerous “that to correct even a small number of them would be a waste of the reader’s time.” AAL is “transparently motivated by a white-hot animosity toward [him],librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:withered-anarchismSat, 05 Aug 2017 04:38:58 +0000Preface - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/anarchy-after-leftism/preface
Preface
Leaving the twentieth century, leftism of every stripe is in disarray and defeat — anarcho-leftism included. And Murray Bookchin’s Social Ecology is certainly no exception to this trend.
Bookchin, one of the best known of contemporary North American anarchists, has spent much of his life staking out his own personal eco-anarchist ideological territory under the banners of Social Ecology and Libertarian Municipalism. He is the author of a steady stream of books from the sixties to the p…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:anarchy-after-leftismSun, 23 Jul 2017 09:55:06 +0000Anarchy after Leftism - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/anarchy-after-leftism/index
Anarchy after Leftism
[Anarchy after Leftism by Bob Black]
Anarchy after Leftism
Bob Black
PrefaceIntroduction
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Anti-copyright @ 1997 Bob Black This book may be freely pirated and quoted. The author and publisher would like to be informed at:
C.A.L. Press Columbia Alternative Library POB 1446 Columbia, MO 65205–1446 USAlibrarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:anarchy-after-leftismSun, 23 Jul 2017 09:54:23 +0000Introduction - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/anarchy-after-leftism/introduction
Edinburgh, Scotland & San Francisco, CA: AK Press, 1995. All references consisting solely of numerals in parentheses are page references to this book. All other references — be they to Bookchin’s other writings or the writings of others — follow an approximation of social-science citation style. That is, they consist of a parenthetical reference to a source by the last name of the author and the year of publication followed by, in some instances, specific page references. For example, (Black 199…librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)black:anarchy-after-leftismSun, 23 Jul 2017 09:52:33 +0000The Abolition of Work - createdhttps://hermetic.com/black/the-abolition-of-work
The Abolition of Work
The Abolition of Work
Bob Black
No one should ever work.
Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you’d care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.librarian@undisclosed.example.com (John Bell)blackSun, 23 Jul 2017 09:42:50 +0000